Religion

Smith reviews Gorsuch on assisted suicide

Sobering:

Today a diverse, if loose, coalition of politically strange bedfellows—disability-rights activists, civil-rights organizers, advocates for the poor, medical-professional organizations, the Catholic Church, and the pro-life movement—stands as an effective bulwark against the spread of assisted-suicide legalization. Illustrating how successful this coalition has been, it defeated voter referenda to legalize assisted suicide in Michigan in 1998 and Maine in 2000. Last year, in a high-profile victory, assisted-suicide legislation in California died unexpectedly in a State Senate subcommittee. Serious efforts to legalize assisted suicide have also been turned back repeatedly in Vermont and (barely) in Hawaii.

But the euthanasia movement is strong, too. Its organizations are well financed, and its leaders and grassroots proponents are determined. Thus the only sure thing about the future of assisted suicide is that there will be political trench warfare over the issue for years to come. A thorough analysis of the “future” of assisted suicide in America will bring the same depth of research and analysis to the political dimension of the issue that Gorsuch so capably brought to his description of the trends in law and philosophy.

Happily, we don’t (yet) live in a country where our most contentious social issues are decided in the ivory tower by courts or regulators imposing the views of academic “experts” on the rest of society. In the end, for better or for worse, the future of assisted suicide and euthanasia will likely be decided via democratic debate in the public square. Indeed, this ongoing political struggle may be the most interesting part of the subject, and the book suffers by omitting it.

From Mirror of Justice posted 2007-04-17.